Sunday, March 18, 2012

I read somewhere that Just Kids begins as a love story and ends as an elegy, and I repeat that because it really sums the book up quite nicely. The story begins in 1967, when 20-year-old Chicagoan Patti Smith moves to New York City, meets artist Robert Mapplethorpe, and begins a lifetime of love and friendship. As most people know (as such, not a spoiler), Mapplethorpe’s lifetime was cut short as he died of complications from AIDS in 1989 when he was 42. Before he died, Mapplethorpe asked Smith to “write his life,” and Just Kids, which won a National Book Award, is that story – at least the story from Patti Smith’s perspective, anyway, which I found entertaining and intellectually stimulating.

Here’s a little perspective on Smith and Mapplethorpe (pictured). Smith, who is commonly referred to as the ‘Godmother of Punk,’ is famous for her music and poetry, and is probably most well know for her performance of Because The Night, which she co-wrote with Bruce Springsteen.

Robert Mapplethorpe, who was known in the art world for his black and white photos of flowers and nude men, lept into the national consciousness when public funding got tangled up in a show of his homoerotic and provocative religious art, and triggered a giant controversy. Remember the crucifix-in-a-jar-of-urine brouhaha? CLICK ON READ MORE BELOW...

Just kids, however, is more about Smith and Mapplethorpe’s time living, loving and sometimes starving together in the Big Apple during the late 60’s and early 70’s. If you have an exaggerated sense of romance about New York City and that era, as do I, you’ll enjoy Smith’s reminiscences.

She tells great stories about their time at the Hotel Chelsea, famed for housing the likes of William Burroughs, Arthur Miller, Allen Ginsberg, Dylan Thomas, Bob Dylan, Janis Joplin, Leonard Cohen, Iggy Pop, Stanley Kubrick, etc. (the list is endless); their nights in the backroom of Max’s Kansas City, famed for being Andy Warhol’s hangout; Smith’s love affair with a young Sam Shepard (pictured top right); and Mapplethorpe’s love affair with handsome and very wealthy art patron, Sam Wagstaff (pictured bottom right).

Just Kids is also about a wonderful friendship that couldn’t be broken or diminished by lives changing course, or by time or distance, and that story alone is worth the read.

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About Me

Good Day and welcome to the Gals – Very Smart Gals blog. My name is SueAnn Wade-Crouse, and I am a very proud mother of three and grandmother of eight, and have been happily married for 20+ years to an extraordinary man. I am also a development consultant/grant writer, over-reader, camper and closet recluse. I have walked on the coals of life and survived and become stronger from that which hasn’t killed me. My life is blessed with abundant and magnificent family and friends. Thank you for visiting my blog. I hope that you will post a comment, subscribe, and email the site to your friends. Lust for Life.

About the Very Smart Gals

What the heck is Gals – Very Smart Gals? I originally created the Very Smart Gals blog because I wanted, or perhaps needed, to record my memories of my recently departed mom, Willie Belle Forbes Wade. Willie was a wile old gal who taught her four daughters and one son many things, not the least of which was to make friends with smart women. Since she was a schoolteacher by trade, she tended to teach her life lessons over and over (the reinforcement principal), so I decided a good way to memorialize my mom and capture her wisdom was to repeat the things she taught me. Voila! “One Hundred Things My Mom Taught Me A Million Times,” the anchor of the Gals – Very Smart Gals blog, was born.

Another thing Willie taught us was to read, read, read. Aware of my reading addiction, friends often ask, “What’s good?” So I began reviewing books on my Gals – Very Smart Gals blog as well, even drawing comments from some of the authors of books reviewed.

Then in the fall of 2009, one of the 350+ gals on my list of Very Smart Gals said, “Who are the Very Smart Gals? Why are you keeping all of them to yourself?” So, I began a series of lunches and happy hours to introduce 3-6 women at each get together. The outcome was magical and difficult to define. There were women I had known for 20 years I didn’t know knew each other. There were rediscovered friendships. Gals even discovered shared distant relatives! And each lunch or happy hour ended with very smart gals knowing more very smart gals. The Very Smart Gals live all over the US; they’re every age and every color; they’re wealthy and barely scraping by. In fact, their only common denominator, other than being female, is “smart.”

I also tend to be reclusive, so getting the Very Smart Gals together is part of my self-induced therapy, to get me out of my shell.

So what’s the agenda of the Very Smart Gals; what is the deeper meaning? Very Smart Gals is about women appreciating, honoring and supporting each other, and according to wile Willie, that is important enough.

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